PenCom denies N3m salary per worker

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has denied that its highest paid worker gets N3 million monthly salary.

This was contained in a statement released at the weekend by the National Pension Commission (PenCom).

According to the commission, mischief makers were behind the claim that its officials were paid that much.

The National Assembly had said the commission budgeted N12 billion for its 500 workers in one year.

A House of Representatives member and member of the Committee on Finance, Aminu Suleiman, had noted that with a budget of N12 billion for 500 workers, it meant that on the average, a PenCom worker was paid N24 million per annum.

The lawmaker had expressed shock while examining the accounts of the commission where N12 billion was said to have been spent on the salaries of PenCom workers in one year.

“At an average of N2.4 million per month, are you telling me that the most junior personnel in PenCom earns as much as N2.4 million per month?” he had queried.

But in its statement, PenCom said: “Following the false and misleading information on the compensation package of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) being circulated in the traditional and social media, it has become necessary to set the record straight in the interest of the Nigerian public.

“It is being alleged that the least paid PenCom employee earns a salary of ?3 million per month. This has fueled all sorts of false allegations and unfair insinuations.

“The public is invited to note that the claim is absolutely false. The highest paid official of the commission earns less than ?1 million a month. It is, therefore, completely illogical and improbable that the least paid will earn a monthly salary of ?3 million.

“We understand that there is an element of mischief and possible blackmail on the commission’s compensation package. From our understanding, it appears someone calculated all staff costs, including training, staff exit benefit scheme, and employer’s pension contribution, and divided the total by the number of the commission’s employees and concluded that the least paid employee is on a monthly salary of ?3 million. There is a clear difference between staff cost and staff salaries.”

The commission explained that from its inception in 2004, the Federal Government mandated its board to adopt an employee compensation policy that favorably compares to comparator government bodies in the financial services sector, such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).